Welcome to this twenty-seventh day of October, 2014. I’m John “Boomjack” Hoskin and this is Here Comes The Boom – EP #26.

For Canadians, the unthinkable happened last week and our friends, especially our American friends, showed us their support.

Memories and Moments

I’m a hockey coach. This year I am fortunate enough to be able to work with an incredible group of young ladies known as the Bearcats. One of the first philosophies that I attempt to deliver is that there are incredible similarities between what it takes to be an excellent hockey player and what it takes to be an excellent human being. Both pursuits require you to be passionate, to think of others ahead of yourself, to focus, to carry a positive attitude and so much more.

These building blocks of success are formed over dozens of hours of practice and play, but the fact of the matter is that there are distinct moments when these epiphanies happen, when the clouds part, when the light goes on over the player’s head and they suddenly “get it”.

Those moments are magical or perhaps in some cases, surreal.

Canada had one of those moments last week. A terrorist murdered an unarmed soldier standing watch over our national war memorial. It was the act of a coward, meant to create fear and generate panic, but in that moment, that terrible, horrific moment the magic that true gamers (and not the GamerGate miscreants) feel when they play games with their friends was magnified a thousand fold as citizens ran forward, towards the shooting, putting themselves in harm’s way to help…a fallen soldier.

“Such loving attention, at a time when the scene was still in chaos and it was unknown how many shooters there might be, said so much more than the thousands of words we have heard. Even in the shadow of the young corporal’s death, it is not too much to say that this was a very gratifying moment — a tragic moment, but one worth honouring. All Canadians immediately recognized the actions of the corporal’s final companions as an example of how people should act at such a time, how we would wish to have acted. And how, heaven forbid, we may wish to be treated if it was us laying on that sacred ground, breathing our last breaths.” – Rex Murphy (National Post)

As a country we were moved by the people who in that “moment” did what was right.

And… we were moved again when our best friends showed their support.

This story, this act…is much bigger than gaming, but we have our own moments and our own group who have taken our name, “gamers” and tarnished it by harassing women (and men), doxing celebrities and even forcing planes into emergency landings. They are few and they are misguided, but like the spoiled child at the toy store they will throw tantrums hoping to be heard. They are the terrorist and it is time for the rest of us to be the citizens that put ourselves in harm’s way to stand up for what is right.